Representative Town Meeting Cuts Funding For Community Policing

Representative Town Meeting approved a $6.39 million budget for public safety Wednesday, effectively cutting the community policing program that was restored by the Town Council.

The meeting approved a $2.22 million budget for the Groton City Police Department, and $200,500 for Groton Long Point police, after rejecting suggestions to drop both budgets to zero.

 “This is going to be unpopular,” member Dana Semeraro began, before suggesting zero dollars for Groton City Police. Groton has three police departments, and she said eliminating money would force the departments to look at changing this arrangement.

“It’s time that we update it, it’s time that we modernized, it’s time that we had a more efficient structure where we’re not wasting funds,” Semeraro said.

Others disagreed.

“I think it is short-sighted to just blindly go in and throw out figures to cut things because we are trying to make a statement,” member Michael Collins said.

Representative Town Meeting does not have authority to abolish the police departments in either subdivision because they exist by charter. However, the body has funding authority.

Groton Town Police Chief Kelly Fogg said it would cost about $1.8 million for the town police to provide service to the city of Groton, including benefits for employees.

Mayor Elect Marian Galbraith said assigning officers based on population alone doesn’t consider the nature of what they deal with. She said city police handle 2.25 times more “activities” than town police, including criminal arrests, assaults, and requests for medical help.

“That’s a significant number, so to just assign people on a population count is inaccurate,” she said.

Fogg said the crime rate is a little higher in the city, but not that much.

“You can make statistics and data say different things and do different things,” he said.

During the four-hour meeting Wednesday, the group tried six times to either cut the town public safety budget further or add back community policing in various neighborhoods.  All motions failed.

The idea behind community policing is that by sending officers to the same neighborhood, people develop a rapport with the officer, so the officer learns the root causes of crime in that area and what might help.

Fogg said Groton still tries to send the same officers to a given area, but cannot achieve the same effect. Groton is divided into 6 patrol areas with an average of 5,000 people each.

Fogg said the community policing budget was about $150,000 in 2001 or 2002, and has been whittled away over the years.

Representative Town Meeting also agreed Wednesday with the Town Council to provide zero dollars for road paving in Groton Long Point and in Groton City. The group continues budget deliberations on Monday.